


What Is Lost and What Is Found

by Yatorihell



Series: In The Darkness [47]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, ノラガミ | Noragami (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 14:31:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16431233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yatorihell/pseuds/Yatorihell
Summary: The aftermath of a bittersweet victory.





	What Is Lost and What Is Found

**Author's Note:**

> Minimum effort, no beta, we die like men.

Yato sat in a daze.

One hour ago, he was staring into a tomb containing his best friend. Fifteen minutes ago, he was released from the infirmary. And now, he was staring at the stone passageway outside the hospital wing, too numb to think of anything but what had just happened.

Even if the hospital had fixed him up and made him feel as good as new, Yato’s thoughts were a mangled wreck that no potion would ease.

_This is your fault._

The only thing that snapped him out of his stupor was the quickening of footsteps.

He barely registered the blonde and brunet behind Hiyori as she rushed towards him. Her expression – one he expected to be stony when she found out he had all but killed their friend – didn’t meet his expectations. The expression etched into the wideness of her eyes and pound of her footfalls were worried.

Frantic.

Yato stood without realising, words sticking in his throat just as she collided with his chest, arms wrapping around his neck tightly with a shaky breath.

Yato held his arms around her hesitantly, barely touching her, but it didn’t take long for him to cave in. His face pressed against her neck, a long sigh escaping him as he wound his arms around her waist.

Hiyori’s fists gripped the back of his shirt tighter, as if she feared she would lose him. After all, tonight, she nearly did.

The quiet pacing of footsteps told the pair Kazuma and Bishamon had left, knowing that this was a moment that shouldn’t be interrupted.

Not when they still had to break the news to Yukine.

Tears pricked the corners of Yato’s eyes and a half-sob escaped him, suppressed only by the warm skin of Hiyori’s clavicle.

“He’s ok, its ok,” Hiyori hushed. “You found him. He’s safe.”

Yato knew that was a bold-faced lie, but Yato believed it regardless. Thinking about what would’ve happened if Rabou had managed to take Yukine – probably back to Father – didn’t bear thinking about.

And whatever the Sorcerer was going to do next….

Hiyori’s low voice telling him how Yukine had caught Rabou in the act of bewitching the cup, enshrouded in dark robes with an accomplice who had noticed him before he could warn them, fell on deaf ears.

“Hiyori,” Yato croaked, pulling back a few inches so his voice was audible, “we need to stop this.”

Despite his head being hung low, Hiyori was still able to peer up into Yato’s face. Her heart twinged.

“Yato,” she said softly.

“It’s my fault Suzuha’s…” Another crack ceased Yato’s voice.

“Yato, look at me,” Hiyori rested her hand against his cheek, making him look at her through damp lashes, “They will stop him.”

Yato covered Hiyori’s hand with his own. He could barely look at her, not when her eyes searched his for some reassurance that everything would be ok, even if she was the one trying to convince him that it would.

“No,” Yato whispered. He pressed his cheek into Hiyori’s hand, hoping she didn’t notice the tremor in his own, “ _this_.”

Hiyori’s lips parted, partly in surprise and partly to argue, but Yato shook his head. He pressed her knuckles to his lips, fighting down the lump that had formed in his throat once again.

Silence filled the passage. The boy, not wanting to break a heart, and the girl whose heart was fragile enough in that moment to shatter entirely, stared at the floor.

“He’s going to hurt you -,”

“I don’t care what happens to me, and I’m sure Yukine feels the same,” Hiyori cut him off sharply, catching Yato off-guard. “We aren’t leaving you. And _you_ aren’t leaving _us_.”

Hiyori’s hand tightened in his own, and Yato knew he was doomed to never have friends who would desert him.

A watery smile flickered across his lips. There were worse fates.

Yato stayed quiet as Hiyori lead him into the infirmary, seeing the creamy curtains had been drawn around one of the many unoccupied beds.

Their footsteps rang quietly and the soft scrap of metal rings parting the curtains told Yukine he had visitors. He opened his eyes, head lifting slightly as Yato and Hiyori let the divider fall behind them.

Yukine eyed Yato’s dishevelled appearance. “You look awful.”

The smile that followed his observation was diluted, but with a quick glance at his hands and face Yato could see he was unharmed – physically at least.

_This is your fault._

“You _both_ look awful”, Hiyori answered when Yato didn’t. Hiyori slowly sat at the end of the bed, careful to avoid his legs.

Yukine shuffled his feet beneath the light covers, hands falling into his lap as he sat up. “Did they catch the other one? The one who helped Rabou?”

Hiyori glanced at Yato. He hadn’t moved, standing with his eyes fixed on her, completely lost at contributing to the conversation. “No.”

“Thought so,” Yukine let out a sigh. He returned the sad smile Hiyori gave him, but hers vanished with his next words.

“Have you seen Suzuha?”

Yato stiffened. His throat had become the texture of sandpaper, unable to breathe let alone speak. The blood stains dark on his jersey and dirt caked under his fingernails, hair like a bird’s nest and his weathered face were a reminder of that he had a lucky escape.

But Suzuha…

“I thought he’d be here,” Yukine said.

Yato’s eyes flickered away from Yukine, but he wished they hadn’t. that’s when they fell on the single item on the bedside table: Suzuha’s charm bracelet.

Bile rose in his throat, the world beginning to sound peacefully muffled as his vision blurred.

_This is your fault._

He doesn’t see Yukine’s confused stare as Yato shoves his way past the curtain, nor hear his own footsteps. He doesn’t see Hiyori, with the same tears in her eyes, stay by Yukine’s side.

“Hiyori?” Yukine frowned.

She didn’t answer. Her head dropped, hair hiding her face, and Yukine noticed her fingernails digging into the bedsheets. Sickening realisation flooded through him like a bucket of water.

“Hiyori, where’s Suzuha?”

Yukine watched her with a worried expression until she finally looked up at him with wet cheeks. He stared at her, eyes growing even wider at the two word’s Hiyori whispered in a cracked voice.

“I’m sorry…”

 

~

 

The curfew bell fell on deaf ears as Yato wandered through the castle.

Grief and guilt had distracted him from the pitying looks from teachers and students. No one dared talk to him, fearing that ghostly, stricken face would crumple if he said a word. That, and perhaps because the state of his clothes hadn’t changed since the challenge.

A pale blue washed the sky through latticed windows that Yato passed, body and mind separate as he let himself wander for hours plagued by the memory of Suzuha’s corpse.

He didn’t realise he was outside the infirmary until his hand was on the door.

Yato wondered if Yukine is awake, or if Hiyori stayed with him. He wondered what he would say about how Suzuha died. Why he was the one stood in front of him covered in Suzuha’s blood.

Why he couldn’t stop it.

Yato flinched when the door groans open under his hand, but it didn’t matter – Yukine was already awake.

He sits up slowly when Yato pulls back the curtain. There’s a fixed coldness in his eyes as he rakes over Yato’s appearance.

Yato stood ridged, anything he wanted to say gone as he watched Yukine’s head bow. He wished he never came.

“Why didn’t you save him?” Yukine’s voice tremored, his blond fringe his hiding his eyes.

Yato looked at him for a long moment. He expected Yukine to scream, to seek comfort.

Not this.

“Yukine…”

What could he possibly say to justify why Suzuha died instead of him? What could justify the dried blood on his shirt that he knew didn’t belong to him?

The short silence that follows is painful, drawn out.

It’s enough to make Yukine snap.

In the instant it takes to free his legs from the bedsheets, he’s stumbling heavily towards Yato who shoots out a hand to stabilise him. His fists ball in to Yato’s shirt, still dirty from the trial, and pull him down to scream in his face.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU SAVE HIM?!” Yukine’s knuckles whiten from the anguish that he tries to deflect onto the collar of the bloodstained shirt rather than Yato’s neck.

Yato’s first instinct is to grab at his hands to try and prise him off, but the wild, despairing look that he sees reflected in Yukine’s own eyes brings down the final barrier Yato had defending himself from the reality of what he saw.

"I'm sorry." The words stick in his throat, barely passing his lips.

His hands curls from Yukine's fists and gently wrap around Yukine's shoulders. His head bows to rest on his shoulder as he feels them start to shake slightly and the balled fists on his chest clench for another reason.

"I'm sorry," he repeats over and over again, muffled against the clothing and masking most of his grief. The wetness on his face dampens Yukine's clean bed shirt and smears it with grime, not that either of them care.

Yukine's face is pressed into Yato's neck, stiflingly humid from his open-mouthed sobs and burning tears that he thought he had already cried leave his cheeks marred with crisscrossed tear stains.

One of the three people who he loved most in the world was gone. The only one who loved him in a completely different way than anyone ever could.

 

~

 

Tabloids and newspapers screamed headlines for the following weeks, about how Hogwarts wasn’t safe, and that Professor Tenjin had hired a suspected Death Eater. The front pages were littered with Rabou’s mugshot which screamed curses from the pits of Azkaban, Professor Tenjin’s wizened face, and the aftermath of the Triwizard Tournament.

There was no celebration for the victor; who even cared?

The only day which marked the end of the championship, was a day no one wanted to face. The day they had to say goodbye to Suzuha.

Yukine held Hiyori’s hand tightly, lip bitten raw and eyes bloodshot and aching. He could barely look at those who tried to comfort him, nor Suzuha’s parents who enveloped him in brief hugs, before it became too much, and they let go.

Yato, who couldn’t bear to face a summers sky and sunflowers that were too bright and too warm for a day so cold, stood on the edge of the crowd gathered at the graveside.

He wouldn’t forgive himself for that night. Not really. Even if Yukine’s words had been spat in hate, he didn’t blame Yato for Suzuha’s death. He blamed whoever had brought them into the graveyard.

 _Someone else…_ Yato sulked. He turned his gaze away from the crowd to the ground. He’d thought it over a million times, who was in the graveyard, who the Sorcerer had said was the reason for him being there that night.

It couldn’t have have been Rabou – he was in the stadium the whole time. Everyone saw him.

Next was Kuguha, who had managed to slip away not even a year ago. He seemed to have a part to play in whatever game Father was playing, and now Yato himself was a piece in the Sorcerers chess set.

The only thought Yato knew was true no matter what reassurances were offered was one that thrummed in his head.

_This is your fault._

**Author's Note:**

> I did start to regret killing Suzuha off around chapter 39 and did consider keeping him alive, but then I was like nah he gotta go. Sorry Yukine.
> 
> This is like the end of the fourth arc??? Who knows???? I think it's a good place to leave it. 
> 
> I'll have some sort of interluding-summer-type chapter thing out whenever I get to it. Perhaps a News Years resolution to stop being useless and actually write.


End file.
